


they say you can't change the past

by bowlingfornerds



Series: long fics [14]
Category: The 100
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Modern Setting, Time Travel AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5462018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowlingfornerds/pseuds/bowlingfornerds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy and Octavia accidentally turn their microwave into a time machine, and Bellamy finds himself falling into the past, for minutes at a time, and visiting himself when he was a kid. Of course, with every time traveller, he's going to make a massive mistake, altering the time line forever.</p><p>Or, the Time Travel AU that no one asked me for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	they say you can't change the past

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this on movellas back in October, but if there's one thing you should know about movellas, is that only 80-odd people appreciate The 100 fan fics. So, I deleted it and put it here instead, where thousands of people appreciate The 100 fan fics, and, more specifically, Bellamy Blake.
> 
> This is a Bellamy-central fic that I loved writing. Enjoy.

Bellamy didn’t mean to discover time travel. He just kind of… did.

It started off with his sister trying to make dinner; Octavia was never a good cook and once a week she had insisted that he teach her. He was simply trying to show her how to make a carbonara – it involved a sauce and pasta, which shouldn’t be that difficult, but with O, was a thousand times worse.

What happened, he wasn’t sure. She had just messed up the recipe and in her fit of post-failure-anger, thrown the saucepan into the sink. Or, near the sink.

What really happened was the disgusting carbonara-pasta-mouldy mess landed on the microwave. He didn’t catch what happened next, but he moved towards it, aiming to wipe it down as Octavia sighed and apologised from the other side of the kitchen, sitting in a chair where she could do no damage, and the world went dark.

Then there was a bright light, and he was standing in his kitchen once more. In front of him, the microwave was the same old shoddy mess it had always been, but the carbonara looked more like a growth and the timer was counting down. It had just less than two minutes – one fifty six, one fifty five, one fifty four.

Next, Bellamy noticed that the kitchen wasn’t the same one he had just come from, and he could no longer hear her voice anymore. The beige walls and grimy white tiles were now replaced with a gaudy blue wall and green tile-combo. He looked around, more in disgust than awe, before he realised. Next, the counters weren’t the granite that he remembered, but wooden and a mess of vegetables and wrappers.

What really confused him, though, was his mother, standing at the sink.

Aurora Blake was dead, that Bellamy knew. She had been gone for what must have been three years by this point; an overdose and a needle on the bathroom floor. Bellamy had taken custody of O, and he had cursed the day that he let his mother out of his sight; the day that he hadn’t realised they were in debt, and that her shady business was all that was keeping them afloat.

Yet, here she was, humming as she washed dishes, not even noticing his presence.

Bellamy held his breath, not wanting to disturb the moment. He was dreaming – he must have been. The microwave must have short-circuited and he would have hit his head on the floor. He bet O was trying to wake him up right now; that she was filling a glass with cold water to splash over his face.

He stared at the microwave again, now reaching one twenty on the timer, and back to the woman in front of him. There was no doubt in his mind that this was his mother; he could point her out in any crowd, yet here she was, alone.

“Bell!” She suddenly called out. “Octavia!” There were sounds of doors opening and shutting and Bellamy crowded himself into the corner, by the microwave, eyes wide and breathing fast. In front of him, his mother reached for a tea towel to wipe her hands, and he was remembering this kitchen, the tiles and the walls, from the flat he lived in when he was seven – he couldn’t have been older than seven, right?

Then he saw himself walking through the door.

That was a sight he never thought he’d see. But, there he was. Bellamy Blake, a child, with a bright smile and a small face; hair closely cropped and not the shaggy mess that he wore it like now. The freckles were more prominent and his eyes weren’t as dark. However, his – young Bellamy’s – smile faded at the sight of him – old Bellamy.

“Who’s that?” He grumbled. Bellamy didn’t remember this ever happening, but he automatically caught on to what he was saying. Aurora always brought home new boyfriends; men that Bellamy now knew were paying her for awful things in awfully dark rooms.

“Who’s who?” Aurora asked, turning around. She stopped, also. Then it was a staring competition; Bellamy flicking his gaze between his mother and himself, and then the young girl that he remembered so vividly, clutched in the small version of himself’s arms. Bellamy swallowed, wishing some gaping hole would close him up. “Who are you?” Her voice was harsh and afraid and Bellamy opened his mouth, gaping, not being able to bring out any words. “Get out!” She held the tea towel like a weapon, and Bellamy was floundering. He looked around, trying to find his escape, before looking back to the microwave.

It was still ticking down; forty four, forty three – if that was going to be his escape route, it was taking too long. Bellamy swallowed.

“I’m uh, I’m Bellamy,” Bellamy muttered, still staring between the people around him. This was too weird, even for him – Bellamy really hoped that he was knocked out on the floor of his kitchen; that would be much easier to explain than this.

“What?” Aurora questioned.

“I’m Bellamy,” he repeated.

“ _I’m_ Bellamy,” his younger self informed him. Older Bellamy nodded.

“Yeah… yeah, I figured as much.” He sniffed, and his eyes caught on Octavia; two years old, she must have been. She was staring as much as the others, but she was strangely at peace with it all. He stared back at the microwave. Thirty one, thirty, twenty nine.

“What’s going on?” His younger self asked. Bellamy – the older – shrugged.

“I have no idea.”

“I don’t care!” Aurora all but yelled. “Get out of my home!” Bellamy tried moving further away from the searing gaze that he remembered his mother to have, but the cupboards were already digging into his back. Only then did the realisation dawn on him that his mother was standing in front of him, and he wasn’t taking advantage of the moment. This was his mother – his _dead_ mother. In one quick moment, he sprung forward, clutching Aurora Blake into an embrace so tight. He knew her hands were floundering, but then he pushed away and the timer was counting his final twenty seconds – he really hoped that was his escape.

“What was that?” She ground out.

“I really miss you,” he told her honestly, before moving back to the microwave. He didn’t know how this would work; if there would be an explosion or if the timer would just go and he would disappear – maybe he would remain and then have to explain everything to his family in the past; watch himself grow up and not really have a legal birth certificate anymore – but he tried not to think about that.

In front of him, his family’s mouths moved like he knew fish’s would; open and shut like they didn’t know what to say. He didn’t either, so he was relieved when the timer dinged and the world went dark again.

When he awoke, he was on the floor in his kitchen – his actual one – with Octavia’s voice in the distance, squeaking in fear.

“He just disappeared!” She was insisting. “I don’t know where he is – Clarke, _please_!” Bellamy scrambled up from the floor, rubbing his head and looking around the kitchen. The tiles were a dirty white, that reminded him that he should clean them, and the walls were beige. An awful carbonara mess was flung around the kitchen, and he stared at the microwave for a moment – seemingly normal, with the growth that he didn’t understand, stuck on the side, different to how it had been when it was first thrown. Almost as if it had dried.

He rubbed his head, pushing his way out into the living room. His younger sister caught sight of him immediately.

“Bellamy!” Octavia ran for him, enveloping him in a bone crushing hug as her phone was flung onto the sofa. He held her tightly in return, remembering the wide eyes of the toddler that he’d seen – her but so many years ago. “Bell, where have you been, what happened?”

“How long was I gone for?” Was all he asked, pulling away to look at his sister – very much not a toddler. She was seventeen now; it was fifteen years after that event, yet suddenly it wasn’t just his own memory from the moment before. If he thought about it, Bellamy could remember being called into the kitchen, holding his sister, and finding a man with his mother – a man that his mother claimed he didn’t know.

He had called himself Bellamy.

He went weak at the knees before Octavia could respond, and she pulled him onto the sofa.

“Bell, you’ve been gone for like half an hour – literally just vanished.”

“What about the microwave?” He asked. She furrowed her brow.

“The microwave didn’t go anywhere – you did. What happened?” Bellamy swallowed, leaning back into the cushions.

“I went back in time,” he muttered. Octavia just laughed next to him and he spent the next twenty minutes making her believe what he was saying.

-

“So, you’re time travelling.” Clarke had taken to the idea pretty well, and was sitting on the counter of the kitchen, wanting to see if for herself.

“Apparently,” Bellamy shrugged, eyeing the microwave carefully.

“Do you choose where you want to go?” He just shrugged again.

“I’ve only done it once, Clarke.” She was silent for a moment, and he glanced back at her. Clarke and he had been friends for the past couple of years – they met in the same Art History course on the first day of university, and while they absolutely tore each other apart when marking the other’s essays, the two of them came to be quite close friends in the process. (Also, he was a little bit in love with her, but that was neither here nor there.)

“You should be careful,” she advised. “If you go back in time, you could change the present.”  Bellamy sighed, nodding. It sounded valid – every TV show had a time travel episode at some point, and it always ended up changing the future. He didn’t want to mess anything up too badly.

“Wait, so you’re going to try this _again_?” Bellamy glanced at his sister’s incredulous expression.

“I guess so – I mean, it’s time travel. It sounds decent.”

“You could get so many royalties for being the ones to create time travel,” Clarke nodded.

“Exactly – less scummy apartment, more money. Something good could come out of this.” O still looked wary however, and just frowned.

“Don’t change too much,” she advised. “I like my life.” Bellamy stared at her for another minute, before going to the microwave.

“Wish me luck,” he muttered. He opened it first, before shutting it, and nothing happened. Bellamy half wondered if the magic was gone. Then he tried the timer – clicking for five minutes. Then he blacked out.

When he came to, he was in a kitchen that he recognised. It wasn’t the one he had now, but one from when he was eleven or so – it was sleek granite; black and white all over the place. There was a six month period where his mother came into some money; she had found a boyfriend who wanted her to live somewhere nicer, and that’s what they did. Then she was dumped and they left the nice apartment with the big windows and actual air conditioning.

But this was that kitchen, Bellamy knew.

He was alone this time, when he arrived. There was no one at the sink, washing up, and Bellamy knew this to be because his mother was with her boyfriend. When he was eleven, she was _always_ with her boyfriend. And when he was seven, she actually cared about her children.

He wondered how far he could venture, before glancing back to the microwave; counting down from five minutes. The flat wasn’t empty – he could hear the television, and Bellamy slowly crept through the kitchen and into the living room. He first saw Octavia; six years old and standing on the armchair. She was giggling; a high pitched squeal that he remembered so clearly – she did it every time she was having fun.

O hadn’t seen him yet. Bellamy leant against the wall, smiling softly as eleven year old Bellamy jumped up onto the sofa.

“Come on, O!” The young him called, holding out a hand for his sister. Octavia took it giddily, jumping from the arm chair to the sofa. Bellamy knew what they were playing because when he was eleven, and they had enough furniture for it, the floor was nearly always made out of lava. “We have to make it out of here!” Younger Bellamy let go of O’s hand, moving along the cushions of the sofa, to where another arm chair stood at the other end. He took a moment to balance himself before jumping across.

When the younger Bellamy turned to look at his sister, he froze. Then he straightened. Bellamy swallowed, watching the child place him.

“Who are you?” He asked. Octavia turned too, and she was stuck to her spot, eyes wide. Bellamy was a little less shell-shocked this time, seeing himself play as a child. He ran a hand through his hair.

“Bellamy,” he replied as evenly as he could manage (trying not to let himself get excited because _he was actually time travelling_ ).

“That’s my name,” the boy replied. Bellamy nodded.

“I know. I guess I could say that I’m you.” Younger him coughed, and suddenly the floor wasn’t lava anymore as he stepped down from the arm chair.

“You’re _me_?” Bellamy shrugged.

“That’s the only explanation I’ve got.” The younger version of him moved to Octavia, helping her onto the ground and holding her to his side.

“How did you get here?” Younger Bellamy asked suspiciously.

“The microwave.” Bellamy moved forward, slowly wandering around the flat and looking around – he didn’t remember this place as clearly as the others; but it stuck out like a sore thumb from the other homes he’d been passed around. “How long has Mum been with Darren?” He remembered that name but he didn’t know why.

“About five months,” the smaller him replied quietly. Bellamy nodded. They had about two months left in this place. He didn’t know what would change though, if he said anything. “How did you get here in the microwave?” His voice was sharp and Bellamy turned to look at him; his hair growing out a little and his eyes narrowed. At his side, Octavia had the full fringe he remembered cutting twice a month and confused green eyes.

“O is terrible at cooking in the future,” he shrugged.

“But-“ Older Bellamy held up a hand.

“It’s a long story. But I’ve got-“ he glanced over the hatch that connected to the kitchen counter, and to the microwave. “About three minutes before the timer goes off and I’m going back.”

“The microwave,” younger him repeated. Bellamy nodded.

“The microwave.” Younger Bellamy huffed, looking around as if searching for the cameras, trying to prove he was on one of those prank shows (Bellamy had a thing about them for the entire time that they had _actual_ TV channels).

“Prove you’re from the future,” he insisted. Bellamy laughed.

“How are you going to know if I’m telling the truth?” He asked. “You’re not going to have lived it yet.” But younger Bellamy crossed his arms across his chest, scowling.

“Prove it.” Bellamy shrugged.

“You move out of here on the nineteenth of October,” he recited, remembering the date he left the privileged life style like a stain on his memory. “O will get her first boyfriend when she’s nine, and she’s only going to date him for a week and a half because he carries her bag in school. And,” he looked over to the television. _Boy Meets World_ was playing absently in the background. It couldn’t have been close to the final season yet, and Bellamy smiled in thought. “This show,” he pointed to the TV, moving closer as the two young Blakes watched him. “Shawn and Angela don’t end up together. I promise you.”

“What character’s Angela?” the younger Bellamy asked.

“You’ll meet her,” he promised, even though he knew that he wouldn’t watch the show for a long while after leaving the flat. He smiled for a moment – he was _time travelling_ , dammit – and then looked back to the kitchen. “I should probably get back.” Younger Bellamy nodded dumbly and older Bellamy walked past, heading for the kitchen. He stood by the microwave as it counted down the final seconds, and glanced back to the doorway, where he and his younger sister were watching, carefully.

“Look after each other,” he instructed. Then the world went black.

-

“Holy crap,” Clarke breathed when he appeared on the floor of his kitchen. She had been pacing the room and now stared down at him. “You literally disappeared into thin air.”

“Thanks,” he deadpanned. “Mind helping a friend up?” Clarke took his outstretched hand and pulled him up from the ground. Octavia walked back into the room at that moment.

“So you went back?” He nodded. “To when?”

“We were living in the nice place,” he said, rubbing his head gently. “Mum was dating Darren and we were playing that the floor was lava?” Bellamy remembered it once more, but this time from the memory of himself, younger. He remembered watching _Boy Meets World_ in the library, just waiting throughout the seasons – the shock when Angela was introduced and then again when she and Shawn broke up. The nineteenth of October when he was staring at the door to the apartment, realising the stranger had been right – when O was nine and got her first boyfriend, she didn’t even need to explain herself because Bellamy beat her to it.

Bellamy swore under his breath. Octavia shrugged.

“Maybe I was too young to remember it?” She asked. He nodded.

“Maybe.”

-

Bellamy used the microwave time machine a couple more times before anything went wrong. Octavia had tried it, but it just worked like a regular microwave for her, and Bellamy realised that he was going to have to buy a new one – because he couldn’t reheat any of his meals without travelling back in time.

He visited himself when he was thirteen and trying to find a job, sitting down on the sofa and giving up. Younger Bellamy was close to tears and older Bellamy couldn’t help but direct him to the corner shop that he remembered working in, instead of letting him get there by himself.

Another time younger Bellamy hadn’t eaten in a few days, because their mother had disappeared for two weeks and they didn’t have any money. Octavia was starving so Bellamy pulled out his wallet and went through his money carefully, fishing out the coins that were created _before_ the time he travelled back to – he really didn’t want one of his memories to be going to jail.

One other time he wound up on the day only Octavia was at home, as an eight year old, waiting for Bellamy to get back from his job at thirteen, and she had broken the toaster. Bellamy knew they couldn’t afford to get a new one, and O had just stared when he popped into the room. She knew enough of her older brother, visiting from the future, but hadn’t remembered them all very well – this time, though, he helped her fix the toaster before the timer ran out, and then when he arrived back in his kitchen, told the memory to Octavia. His sister had gasped, saying that she’d never told him of that moment, because she didn’t want him to be mad about the toaster. But he realised he was definitely affecting other people’s memories – not just his own.

Then he messed up.

Bellamy went back in time because he was bored and curious of what would happen, and gave himself ten minutes on the timer. He arrived into a kitchen covered in ordered packets, his mother weighing something and shoving it into a zip lock bag like all the others.

“What are you doing?” He hissed. This was the second time he’d seen his mother in one of these time jumps. She turned, staring wide eyed.

“You,” she murmured. “You’re back.” He nodded, trying to not feel at least slightly gleeful that she remembered him from – he looked around the kitchen, trying to figure out which one it was – maybe four or five years prior. Younger Bellamy and Octavia must have been at school, and Bellamy wandered out into the kitchen.

“I’m back,” he agreed. “Now what the hell is this?” Bellamy held up a bag of what looked like oregano, but he knew to be weed. Aurora just glared.

“Get out of here. This is none of your business.”

“I think it is,” he replied. “I lived here, I’m your son – this is my business.”

“You aren’t my son. My son is at school – he is not,” she paused “What, twenty? Just go. Forget all about this.” But Bellamy couldn’t, he dumped the bag back on the counter, looking over the rest. Some were chunks of what looked like crystals that they made in school, and others were just fine white powder. He never knew that his mother had been doing this.

“Twenty two,” he corrected, stepping away. “And I am. I came from the future-“ She scoffed.

“Oh, has Bellamy brought a stranger into my home so he can push through with his lies of seeing himself from the future? You know, I let it slide when he guessed the date we moved homes in advance, and when he called a character on a TV show turning up before it had even been written; I said it was luck. But this is too far.” She waggled a finger in his direction and Bellamy sighed.

“I’m from the future,” he promised. “And this,” he pointed to the bags. “Isn’t going to help you.”

“It’s going to keep my children alive, I think that’s help,” she spat back. Bellamy sighed.

“How old is Bellamy?” She paused before replying.

“Twelve. Almost thirteen.”

“In seven years, you’re going to mess up his life,” he promised. He didn’t want to be saying these things to his mother – he loved her – but she hadn’t been good at doing this since he was young. This was the mother he remembered; the shifty one who sold things she shouldn’t and got angry at a moment’s notice. She wasn’t a good mother after this time, and he couldn’t bear to say these things when she was alive.

Aurora rolled her eyes. “And how on Earth do you propose that I’m going to do that?” Bellamy only briefly thought of Clarke’s warning about changing the future. Then he shook his head – what if this changed it for the better?

“You’re going to die,” he told her, lowly, not able to meet her eye. He always had had a flair for the dramatic, he supposed. “And I’m – Bellamy’s – going to raise Octavia by himself, because he won’t let her go into the foster system.” Aurora stared at him, wide eyed, angrily.

“Get out,” she told him. “Get out of my house.” He glared in return, before shoving the closest packets onto the kitchen floor in annoyance. A couple broke open and the powder exploded across the room. “Now look what you’ve done!” She yelled. “Get out! Go!” Bellamy stomped back to the microwave, trying something he hadn’t done before, and pressed the button to set it to zero.

Immediately, he blacked out.

-

When he awoke, he was in a different kitchen. Bellamy immediately assumed that he had just time travelled to a different time, but he didn’t remember this kitchen. It had blue, lino flooring and a white ceiling with a couple of windows. The blue counter tops, matching the floor, were laden with dirty dishes, and he pulled himself up from the ground, slowly.

“What the hell…” Bellamy turned a full circle, not recognising where he was. There wasn’t a single thing about this place that he remembered, so he checked the microwave – the only piece of familiarity – and found that the timer was on zero. Bellamy crept slowly through the kitchen, finding another room coming off of it; a small black sofa facing a mounted television on the wall. It played a basketball game for the single person, on the sofa, watching.

He looked younger than Bellamy by a year or so; dark, floppy brown hair, and pale skin, eyes concentrating solely on the game.

“Hey, Bellamy,” he greeted absently.

“Hey…” Bellamy trailed off, but then in a flash of memory, knew his name. “Finn.” Bellamy swallowed, searching his memory suddenly – he had changed the future; that was the only explanation.

His mother had died when he was nineteen, right? But, no, his mother had died when he was fourteen. That had changed; his mother had died when he was too young to look after O. Immediately, he bolted from the kitchen, searching for his phone in his pockets and not finding it. In the hall, he ran into a girl with dark hair and a smirk, seemingly permanent on her features.

“Bell?” She asked. “You alright?” He nodded, trying to get past in the tiny hallway. He remembered her name like a jolt.

“Yeah, fine, Raven.” He suddenly knew that he’d slept with her once, a few months beforehand when she and her boyfriend, Finn, were on a break. They weren’t anymore, he remembered with a start, and pushed, glancing at the names on each door until he found his own.

“Bell?” She questioned, placing a hand on his arm. Bellamy jerked back, and when he looked at her, knew everything she had told him. He knew her childhood was rough, that Finn was her next door neighbour, that she had a solution to all hangovers – that actually worked – and was allergic to seaweed. He knew all these obscure facts but Bellamy was one hundred percent sure that this was the first time he’d ever met her.

“I’m good,” he lied, pushing on the door with his name written on it. The hand writing was not his own and neither was the drawing of a gladiator at the end of it. Luckily, it was open, and he slammed the door behind him.

His phone was on his desk and he lunged for it, jabbing his fingers into the lock code – different from what he thought it would be (last time he typed it in, it was ‘Princess’ – the name in which he called Clarke; this time, it was Achilles). He scrolled through his contacts before freezing. He had no contacts for C. Clarke Griffin wasn’t in his life.

Bellamy fell back onto his bed, breathing heavily for a moment, before finding the date. It was exactly the day he left, he noticed, but this wasn’t the life he remembered. He racked his memory for more facts about his life; this was his first year at university – funny, when he thought he’d already been on his last year. He and Octavia had been separated when his mother died… she wasn’t living in Ark, like he was. Clarke… he could remember her face from his past life, but other than that, he had never met her before.

Bellamy knew that he had messed up.

This was bigger than just destroying a perfectly good carbonara; this was wrecking his life.

He turned back to his contacts, figuring his sister was the best person to call. In his old life, his sister’s name was _O, The Magnificent_ , per her request. Now, it was just _Octavia Blake_. His heart clenched at that.

It took a good few rings for her to pick up.

“Bell?” She asked as a greeting.

“Hey, O,” he replied.

“You haven’t called in a while.” Bellamy paused.

“I haven’t?”

“No, it’s been almost a month. Why haven’t you called?” Bellamy coughed.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled. Then he shook his head. “O, I need your help.” He heard her sigh on the other end of the line.

“Always help,” she replied sarcastically. “What do you want?”

“I broke the timeline,” he told her.

“What?”

“I literally ripped the timeline in half – our lives don’t go like this.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You made a carbonara,” he explained, rushing his words into one. “But it was awful and you got really angry, so you threw it across the room. It hit the microwave and the microwave then became a portal, basically – like a time travel machine. It was weird. I went back in time – I’ve done it a few times now, but this time I really messed up and I told Mum, back when I was like twelve, but I went as a twenty two year old, that she was going to die when I reached nineteen, because she was literally a Class A drug dealer, and then when I got back to our time, I’d changed the timeline and she died when I was fourteen instead, and I messed up our lives, O.”

There was a pause as he breathed heavily, his mind screaming at him.

“Are you high?” Bellamy groaned.

“No, O! I destroyed the universe, basically.”

“Bell, I think you need help. Are your classes too much for you? University isn’t for everyone, you know. Have you called the Millers? I know they’re your foster family, but I’m sure they’ll help you out.” Memories of the Millers hit him suddenly; Nathan Miller had been his best friend in his last life, and yet he still was in this one, too; but a foster brother now, adopting him after Octavia had been adopted, but the family didn’t want Bellamy, too. He pushed them away, though. Then Bellamy remembered something.

“O, when you were eight, you broke the toaster,” he told her. “A man appeared in the kitchen and helped you fix it. He then disappeared and you never told me about it, even though it was the same man who I’ve been telling you about my entire life.” Even in this timeline, Bellamy remembered the moments when he appeared in the kitchen. “The same man who appeared when I was seven, and you were two, and then again, when he predicted the end of _Boy Meets World_ , and when we’d leave that really nice apartment – the same one who gave us money when we were starving. Remember, O?”

She didn’t reply at first. Then, “Yeah,” she breathed. He could almost hear the cogs in her brain, whirring. “He looked like you.”

“That’s because he _was_ me, O. I know it’s difficult to believe-“ she laughed at that. “But it happened.”

“What was our other life like?” He swallowed, taking a breath.

“We lived together and I had custody of you, and I was half in love with this girl named Clarke – she’s probably graduating around now. I went to university when I was eighteen, not now, and you had a yearlong relationship with this kid named Atom during school-“

“I know Atom,” she told him. “He’s in my Maths class.”

“Yeah, you dated and you were so happy for the longest time. And now, you’re trying to get this guy from your gym, Lincoln, I think, to fall in love with you – you have a six month plan and everything.” She paused.

“Was it working?”

“He went on a date with you last week.” Octavia sighed and the two Blakes just breathed for a few moments.

“Go back in time,” she advised.

“What?”

“You want to change the past? Go back in time. Go back to when you messed everything up and make it right. If Mum’s going to die in every timeline, then at least let her die when we can still grow up together. This is crazy, and I half don’t believe you – but if there’s really a magic microwave? Try it, Bell.”

“I love you, O,” he told her after a beat. “I’m really sorry that this timeline Bellamy is an idiot who never calls.” He could practically hear her smiling down the phone.

“I love you too, big brother. I’m sorry that this timeline Octavia never picks up when you do.”

-

Bellamy waited until Finn had left the kitchen to return to the microwave. From his new-life memory, he knew that Finn wanted to be in the peace core, and was two years younger, at twenty. Raven Reyes, the girl, was a mechanical engineering student at the same age. His other flat mate was called Lexa and she was a political science major with a scary glare, but he had a lot of great memories of watching films and going to bars together, because even though she looked dangerous, she was actually one of his closest friends.

Bellamy reminded himself that no matter what timeline he was in, it was likely that these three people were still going to be at Ark University, in this dorm – he could find them again, he was sure. (And, just from the memories, he kind of wanted to.)

He stood in front of the microwave, eyeing it carefully. Bellamy had never figured out how to direct it to a certain time, but this was as good as anything, he bet. If he couldn’t get the same moment, the least he could do was get somewhere between the time he visited her in, and the time she was murdered. (In this timeline she was murdered and he wasn’t sure if that was worse than the original.)

He also resolved that he wasn’t going to lose Clarke ever again. Just knowing that he never met her in this lifetime was too much for him. He was definitely going to make out with her when he got back.

Bellamy stared at the microwave, and punched in the numbers – ten minutes. He ran his fingers over the other settings, until he found the date. The microwave used to show the date whenever it wasn’t being used, but after so many years, it had worn out and stopped doing that. Even so, he jabbed in the date he thought he visited his mother on, last.

Then he clicked start.

-

When he woke up to the bright light, he found himself in the kitchen he remembered. Aurora wasn’t there, but the now-stacked boxes of assorted drugs were. He wondered what he was going to do; he had to let her go about her business, couldn’t tell her about the future – just let it happen.

He took a breath before heading forward.

Aurora Blake was in the living room, speaking in a hushed tone on the phone even though it seemed to be the middle of the day, and the children were nowhere in sight. When she spotted him, however, she hung up.

“You’re back awfully soon,” she told him dryly.

“Hello to you, too,” he replied. “How many days has it been?”

“Three. I thought you went for years apart, not days.” Bellamy shrugged.

“I changed the future with that last drop-in. Need to put it right.” Aurora paused before narrowing her eyes.

“What did you do?”

“I got you killed,” he sighed. Bellamy flopped onto the sofa, and Aurora watched him carefully before gingerly sitting on the only arm chair. It was odd; he’d never seen her do anything ‘gingerly’ in her life.

“How?”

“You stopped selling drugs,” he groaned, rubbing a hand down his face. “Apparently, for you to survive as long as you do; you have to sell drugs.” She eyed him.

“That doesn’t sound right.”

“I know,” he sighed. “But I guess when you stop, you anger people. So don’t stop, I guess.”

“How much time did you change between my deaths?” Aurora was acting very calm about this, he noticed.

“About five years?” He tried. “Messed up our lives a lot more.”

“How?”

“O and I got separated.” She nodded, more to herself than to him, before glancing around the apartment.

“I don’t want to say that I believe in all of this,” she told him carefully. “But I suppose I’m going to have to. You know, your father used to say he could time travel.” Bellamy raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think I ever believed him fully, either. But he predicted Octavia, and he told me that her father would leave, too. I don’t know,” she sighed. “Maybe it was a coincidence.”

“How did he time travel?” Bellamy asked quietly. She shrugged.

“I don’t know, kettle?” The corner of her lip was quirked and he laughed at her joke. They went silent, then. The air felt heavy with tension and Bellamy wondered how he made it to the age he did, with a mother like this. She wasn’t all bad, he was sure – just the parts he knew well. “How do I die in your original life?”

He was quiet; Bellamy tensed his jaw before sitting up.

“I don’t think I should tell you,” he replied sadly. She nodded like she understood, but he couldn’t help but explain himself. “If I do, it might change that, too. I don’t think I could handle having another different life.” Aurora Blake nodded and Bellamy stood. “I should get back. But, I suppose you’ll see me again, if the timeline still isn’t working right.”

Aurora nodded, standing up, too. She followed him into the kitchen, where he still had a few minutes left on the timer. “I’ll keep selling,” she promised him, and it felt like an awful promise to Bellamy.

“Please…” he trailed off, running a hand through his hair. “Please try and care about us?” She raised her eyebrows. “I think I’d like some better memories of you than the ones I have.” She nodded, her lips pressed together in a thin line.

Quickly, he hugged her. This time, she hugged back.

-

When he woke up, he was back in his kitchen – the right one. The dingy white tiles and ugly beige paint. He crawled up onto his feet, checking the apartment for any changes; O’s room was set up just the way he remembered it and Clarke’s contact was in his phone as _Clarke (Princess)_ and Octavia as _O, The Wonderful_ (which was close enough, he guessed).

He checked through his memory for anything that had changed; Aurora had died two days after she had originally, but he still was the one to find her on the bathroom floor. Bellamy met Clarke in the first day of Art History and she very literally _tore his essay to shreds_ and smiled coyly as he stared at the paper remains. O was raving about Lincoln, from the gym, and Miller was a friend, not his brother.

The front door opened and his sister wandered in, talking to people who came in behind her. Bellamy all but ran up to her, embracing her suddenly in a hug. He breathed heavily as she laughed nervously.

“Hi, Bell,” she said, pushing him away with raised eyebrows. Behind her, Clarke watched, amused. He hugged her, next.

“Hey,” she smiled. “What’s going on?”

Bellamy knew that there were people behind them; their friends Jasper and Monty, but he didn’t care.

“I messed up the timeline awfully, and then I had to go back and fix it,” he told them, rubbing a hand across his face. Octavia looked a little shocked and Clarke looked more nervous than anything.

“The timeline?” Monty asked incredulously, but Bellamy ignored him.

“How badly?” O asked.

“We were separated, and I lived with Miller, and I just started at university this year. You were living with some other people and we literally never talked, O – never. _Clarke_ -“ He looked to her, pulling her in for another hug.

“Bellamy,” she replied slowly.

“Clarke, we never even met.” Her eyebrows shot up before hugging him back.

“Your brother’s gone off the deep end,” Jasper announced as he and Monty pushed past the other three.

“Everything’s okay now, right?” O asked gently. Bellamy nodded and she smiled, kissing him on the cheek. “Then we’re fine.” She went off to join her friends. Bellamy looked down at Clarke, and smiled.

“We know each other,” he told her.

“That we do,” she agreed, smiling. Bellamy nodded, more to himself than to her, before remembering the promise he’d made. Without thinking, he surged forwards, capturing her lips with his own. It was quick, their kiss, just short enough not to gain the attention of their friends, and just long enough to explain at least a quarter of what he felt for her in a single action. But she got it, alright – at least, from what he could tell with her broad smile when he pulled back.

“We’re throwing out that microwave,” he informed her.

“Agreed,” she replied, before moving up to kiss him back.

**Author's Note:**

> AYE THANKS FOR READING  
> PLEASE REMEMBER TO CLICK KUDOS AND TALK TO ME IN THE COMMENTS - TELL ME WHAT YOU THOUGHT? Also, if I were to write a sequel to this, what would it focus on, and would you read it??? Thanks!
> 
> (Like I said in the last fic, I'm waiting on responses to my university applications, so prayers and good thoughts would be highly appreciated, thanks.)


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